Linux Kernel Benchmarks, 2.6.24-2.6.29

Ashmash writes "Phoronix has posted benchmarks of the Linux kernel from versions 2.6.24 to 2.6.29. They ran a number of desktop benchmarks from the Phoronix Test Suite on each of the six kernels on an Ubuntu host with an Intel Core 2 processor. The points they make with the new Linux 2.6.29 kernel are 1. there's a regression with 7-Zip compression 2. OpenSSL has improved significantly 3. a regression drastically impacting the SQLite performance has been fixed 4. the OpenMP GraphicsMagick performance is phenomenally better with this new kernel. In all of their other tests, the kernel performance was the roughly the same."

Re:Why no comparison to OS X?

[wombat21]

Comparison to OS X purely at the kernel level ? I'd prefer to see real-world benchmarks (a contentious area in itself..) across a range of operating systems, using identical hardware, but it would only spark endless debate that the methodology favoured one OS over another. Personally, I use all 3 and each has its pros and cons : such a benchmark would have to make a pretty compelling case for me to abandon any of my currently installed operating systems.

Re:Why dang it?

[Sancho]

I'd like to know why, too. Drastic changes in performance may mean that faster ways to do a thing were discovered. It may also mean that codepaths are being skipped that are essential to things functioning correctly. Remember the Debian OpenSSL bug?

That's why I'd like to know why SSL signing is so much faster under the new kernel. Seeing a 2x improvement makes me wonder if something's been screwed up that could compromise my certs.

Re:Why dang it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey guys. Michael (Larabel, whom owns and runs Phoronix) isn't omnipotent and he does a lot to keep his site running, OS's and tasks benchmarked, and news up to date on top of extra projects like the Phoronix Benchmark Suite of which he has brought togethor almost exclusively by himself. Do yourselves a favour and do some research, and maybe even post it to Phoronix for Michael to update. Assist him and, subsequently, the rest of us to reduce the number of questions.

Re:imagemagic libraries??

[RAMMS+EIN]

``Note: I'm not defending the Phoronix guys. As a previous poster pointed out, they are inherently bad at explaining the why things are slower and sometimes they are flat out wrong [phoronix-test-suite.com]''

In that case, the best they can do is to stop talking about it and just stick to what they know. Knowing just what is faster and what is slower is useful by itself. It can be used as a starting point for investigating what exactly caused the speed-ups and slowdowns. If the Phoronix folks can't or don't want to do this investigation themselves, it's perfectly fine to leave it up to other people.

Re:Boot time is better.

[MichaelSmith]

Oh goody. A million bizarre race conditions.

Re:Boot time is better.

[Blice]

They did it pretty good actually. They have a function that waits for certain things to sync up before continuing at places.

And they *do* test the shit out of kernels before releasing, you know..